Tag Archives: Baghdad

Yochung Xian, a 32 year old Malaysian immigrant smiled as he removed his sunglasses. It had been a long ride on the L-Train from Mid-Town center.. Standing on the train’s platform, he shouldered his small red backpack and strode towards the steps leading up to Edmore street landing. Around him a throng of commuters pushed and shoved their way onto the stifling hot street.

He glanced around as he made his way south along the busy street. The sidewalk covered in chalked graffiti underneath his feet, he watched his reflection in the many glass storefront windows as he passed by them. Around him the pre-holiday crowds moving slowly, stopping here and there to survey the trinkets on sale.

The Edmore Street Shopping center was packed as customers prepared for the long three day weekend ahead. The tiny strip mall situated on Chicago’s south side served a diverse community, most of whom worked in nearby factories and warehouses.

Amid the crumbling basketball courts, rusted cars in back of dilapidated clapboard houses, and overflowing trash dumpsters typical of many Chicago’s inner city neighborhood’s, the smells of barbeque and festivities filled the air with a sense of excitement.

14 year old Joshua Temple dropped another quarter into the pinball machines slot. He’d already spent two dollars in quarters on this machine-he was sure that he would hit the Triple Eight bonus this time. The bonus giving him eight free games. His two best friends Shay and Will crowded around the sides of the machine cheering him on.

The throng of kids playing video games were drown out by the sounds of lasers, bombs, and music emanating from the dozens of game machines in the small non-descript game arcade. An arcade that attracted many, if not all, of the communities children. There was nothing else for them to do, other than attending school and playing in the streets. The Edmore Street Game Arcade was the focal point of the strip mall’s proprietors, a Korean family that called the neighborhood home.

Rachel Meadows, a retired 67 year old white haired school teacher made her way into the small shopping center. Pushing her cart through the store’s narrow isle, she took her time in selecting the goodies that she would need during the customary family cookout enjoyed by her family every year.

Yochung Xian stopped in front of the Edmore Street arcade, watching as the forty odd kids played amid the twinkling lights and garish music. He looked up at the overhead sign, and noticed with satisfaction that it read “We are all God’s children”, and stepped inside of the crowded video arcade.

The explosion hurled bricks and chunks of cement across the parking lot. A girls pink sneaker landed on a parked car fifty feet away. The thunder like boom of the suicide bomb echoing off the buildings across the street-shattering most of the windows in the many small businesses dotting the area.

Inside the ravaged strip mall, mangled and torn bodies lay in spreading pools of blood. The distorted limbless bodies sprawled outside in the parking lot reminiscent of scenes occurring in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The sheer violence of the attack and the abrupt slaughter of the people inside the strip mall a testament to the heinous planning and disregard for human life.

Amid the blaring car alarms and screams of the injured, there was little left of the Edmore Street Game Arcade. The roof had collapsed, crushing those inside. Jagged pieces of glass hurled by the horrific explosion had become missiles, slicing through those unlucky enough to have been standing outside of the arcade. Scores of holiday shoppers lay mangled on the sidewalk and in the parking lot. Thick black smoke rushed upwards filling the clear summer sky, as crackling flames leapt out of the arcade’s destroyed roof.

Across town at the Highland Platform, another L-Train packed with commuters screeched to a stop, its electronic doors opening. As the crowd swarmed into and out of the packed commuter train, a huge fireball mushroomed from inside the train’s center car. Jagged bits of glass and steel scythed through the unaware passengers. The train lifting several inches off the ground-disconnecting it from the others, and toppling ionto the already injured lying on the platform’s concrete walkway.

Islam will never integrate itself into American culture. The only way that Islam can grow, is to take over America from within.

The British allowed Muslims a voice in their government-and now there are 85 Sharia “kangaroo” courts doling out a 5th century brand of justice to British Muslims. Honor killings are on the rise, violent jihadists protest on England’s street, police services are unable to quell angry violent Muslims rampaging throughout their cities, and ordinary British citizen are imprisoned within their own neighborhoods.

Islamic University prepares to open in Berkeley, California next fall. Zaytuna College will be the first accredited Muslim college in the United States.

“The college has been hailed as a victory for moderate Islam, a place to promote religious understanding by “blending traditional Islam and American culture and establishing a permanent place for the religion in American society,”